Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello all!

So, my neighbor told me about aquaponics and I was like "What the heck?!" Anyways, I did a LOT of reading and we decided to give it a try on a small scale for now, and if we like it, possibly build a greenhouse next year and move to a bigger system. Both of us have never raised fish or grown anything, so this should be pretty entertaining ...I myself am an engineer so I had a blast building this thing. Please feel free to criticize as much as you want, as I will only learn from my own experience as well as other people's.

I decided to put my fish tanks in my garage so that I can hopefully control the temperature a little better as we want to raise tilapia in our system. Unfortunately, we had to plumb the water and a drain out about 20' in order to reach the grow bed so that it can be in the sun. My grow bed is 26" x 48" x 11" of expanded shale. I have a bell siphon with a 9" stand pipe (it was an inch longer but I didn't want to go buy yet _another_ bag of shale!)

The system is a CHOP system with the left FT using a SLO to drain into the right, then the right draining into a swirl filter via a SLO. The swirl filter has a ball valve to flush excess solids as well as another valve in order to help facilitate filling the sump below the tanks when starting the system (or emergencies ...of course, after draining the solids first.) The sump tank is 21" x 48" x 14". I'm using 2" PVC (wasn't sure what size to really use, but figured the bigger the less chance for clogging) that reduces down to 1 1/4" before getting to grow bed, and then 1" into the grow bed. You'll notice that there's a 'T' upwards from grow bed ball valve that lets excess water (when closing down the GB ball valve) overflow into the 2" PVC drain (so that my FTs wont overflow); the bell siphon drains into the 2" PVC as well.

Tonight I just got done doing a 99% water swap as I wanted to do a fish-less cycle and added ammonia to the system ...unfortunately I read about checking for cleaning products in it after I added it (go figure, Great Value Ammonia would have it in there) so this is why I had to do the 99% swap. The pH is between 7.2 and 7.4, ammonia is less than 0.25, nitrites are off the chart, and nitrates are between 20 and 40 ppm (can't tell the color difference.) I put an aquarium heater in and turned it to 87ish degrees to hopefully help the process.

I added some API Quick Start after filling and am hoping that the nitrites will be next to nothing tomorrow morning, and that I can add ammonia to the system (not sure how many ppm I should add) to see the nitrites raise by end of day, and hopefully the day after both will drop back to 0 (this should mean it's cycled right? doubt it'd be _that_ fast!)

Here are the pictures!





























Thank you!

George

Looks good! I can't wait to see the proper system when the trial is over!

Cycling usually takes longer than a few days. I can't help you with the ammonia levels to add, sorry to say. But you can just add a few cheap sacrifical goldfish, they'll happily cycle it for you.

Looks good, your pipe work is much neater then mine :/

I'm reasonably new so someone else might chime in, but be careful draining one fish tank to the next, I think that can lead to problems with waste building uo


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nicely built system George N Amy, Well done.

Thank you! My goal is to use the first tank for fingerlings and use the second one for the adult fish, so we have a way to separate them. Now, I haven't ever raised fish, but I figured the smaller the fish, the smaller the poop However, I could be mistaken and maybe they poop more!

So my water temperature got up to about 87 degrees today ...is there such a thing as too warm a temperature for bacteria? I'm still cycling, so I don't have to worry about fish yet.

Today my ammonia levels were about 025 ppm so I boosted it up to above 1 ppm but less than 4 ppm because I thought I read somewhere that if I don't feed the bacteria that creates nitrites that they'll die off. I really rather not have them creating more nitrites right now as my nitrites are still off the chart, but I don't want them to die off.

My nitrates are somewhere in the "orange" area; I can't really tell how many ppm they are, but definitely less than 40 ppm.

My pH is up probably above 8.0 now as well, hopefully this isn't bad. I went ahead and pulled the bell off of my stand pipe to just let it run as constant flood as I saw someone mention that this could help promote the bacteria reproduction in the media bed.

My last concern is if I'm putting enough oxygen in the system. The pump sprays pretty hard straight down in the first FT and creates some good air bubbles. I purchased a Top Fin 800 from the store and put 3 small air stones into the second FT and only 1 in the first (the 800 has 4 ports ...I might go buy a T so that I only have two air stones in the second FT.

Thanks in advance!

Sounds good so far. the small fish poop more in relation to their body weight than adult fish.

Your fish stock is relative to your wet gravel ie 1 fish per 20L of wet gravel.

sounds like its starting to cycle. the bugs are pretty hardy just be patient and let them multiply.

Well this morning I checked the readings again and my pH is still above 8, my ammonia dropped to about .25 ppm so I boosted it back up above 1 but below 4 (don't want to overdose it), my nitrites have not even wiggled (still sky rocket off the charts), but my nitrates did increase to probably 60 ppm. I'm hoping this is good, and that as the nitrates start to take off, the nitrites will hopefully start falling.

Is it okay to plant seeds right now while cycling if I have nitrates? I'm hoping this would reduce nitrates so that I won't have to do a water exchange after cycling due to high nitrates. Not sure if the plants would help/hurt the process or if the pH and other levels would hurt it. Also I'm doing continuous flood right now while I cycle. I'll eventually go back to flood and drain. I'm assuming I just need a hardy plant? Suggestions?

Hey G 'n A,
I waited till I had a Nitrate reading then added all my plants (day 4), I got mostly leafy greens. (it's winter here) I did use about 20l of aquarium water from a friend to get things started.

4 types of lettuce, Bright lights spinach, 2 types of rocket, leeks, spring onions, 2 types of parsley, fennel, watercress, oreganum, a curry bush, red mustard and baby spinach.

I only added my fish after the Ammonia and Nitrite spikes had passed (day 43). Nitrate and Phosphate remain at max on chart although the nitrate does not get to max instantly like it used to. (day 69)

As far as hardiness goes, the only thing that is not happy is the baby spinach everything else is going nuts. Watercress grows almost visually and must be cut back every night or it overruns the other plants.

I like the idea of the fish tank inside - cool.

Enjoy it's rewarding to see it work.
This is what mine looked like on day 65

Looks like a very neat and tidy job!

I was a little worried about not enough air in the water so I made a venturi
and attached that to my water pump via a T and inline ball valves.

Seems to be working ok, and its quite a little pump at 1400 Lires per hour.

Great video on youtube by Rob. With your plumbing skills, you'd be able
to make one in about 40 seconds!

So we started the cycle last Sunday. I did a nearly 100% water swap Tuesday night (or maybe Monday) because I used the wrong ammonia. Anyways I added ammonia this morning to bring levels up above 1 ppm and this is my reading just a few moments ago. Looks like both bacteria are establishing! The nitrates yesterday were probably only 10-20 ppm.

AWESOME! Woke up this morning and first thing I did was check on the system ...and nitrites AND ammonia are at 0!! Nitrates are still just as red as the picture above. pH is a little less purple and more brownish, so I think it's dropping slightly too.

I went ahead and put two cap fulls of ammonia (Ace Hardware brand, 10% ammonia) into the system. I'll check in another hour or two to see if I have enough ammonia in the system (looking at increasing it above 1 but below 4 ppm.) I'm assuming if I read nitrites and ammonia tonight, but tomorrow morning they are at 0, then it'll be cycled?? If so, this is good because I should be able to get some tilapia (if I can find them) and put them in! I ordered seeds yesterday so they should be here in a week or two.

I gotta say, I love your system!! Who are you going through for seeds? I would love to have an indoor fish tank... but the house I own doesn't allow for easy plumbing of that idea.

Thank you yaksha! I purchased from sustainable seeds, but I honestly have no idea about where to really buy or even what to buy lol. I'm new to Texas and I live in the northern part. I purchased cantaloupe, broccoli, grano onions, carrot, and jalapeno seeds. I'm not sure if I can start planting all of those now or not? I know that cantaloupe says it needs warm soil ...hopefully I can grow them before it gets cold.

I'm going to a place nearby to see if I can bend some pipe to make a really small greenhouse cover for JUST the grow bed. I wont be able to walk into the greenhouse, I'll have to move it to get to the food. Again, this is just a test for now.